In the food processing industry, more particularly the restaurant industry, it is often necessary to cut or slice the foods, such as fruit, potatoes, or onions, into a number of pieces without crushing or mashing the food so that the pieces may be cooked or further processed individually, or may be presented as cut in a decorative or attractive manner.
The prior art is replete with various mechanical devices for cutting food into desired configured pieces for further processing or for facilitating eating. In U.S. Pat. No. 951,241 of Hampel there is shown an apparatus for cutting fruit into a plurality of slices. The cutter comprises a top plate having a plurality of radially extending blades tapering to a point below the top plate. The fruit to be cut is contained between a support plate having radial slots and a guide plate having radial slots through which the cutter blades pass. The cutter is actuated by an operating handle which forces the cutter blades down toward the guide plate and the fruit along a grooved upright, cutting the fruit into a plurality of slices as the blades pass completely through the fruit. Similar arrangements for coring and cutting fruit are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 703,331 of Acree and 2,560,229 of Leavens.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,836,212 of Shaw there is shown a vegetable cutting apparatus designed primarily for cutting potatoes into slices in which a multi-bladed cutter is carried in a block which is guided by guide posts. The cutter is levered down onto the work piece by a pantograph arm arrangement, and passes completely through the work piece.
A vegetable cutter apparatus for cutting radishes and the like to form, by a series of radial cuts, a simulated appearance of the pistil and petals of a flower is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,625,972 of Torres. A multi-bladed cutter having a central annular cutter and a plurality of radial cutters is forced down into the work piece. After cutting, as the cutter is withdrawn, any tendency of the work piece to adhere or cling to the cutter is negated by an ejector mechanism which moves with the cutter until a sliding stop carried by the cutter encounters the frame, which forces the work piece off of the cutter.
Various other arrangements and apparatus for cutting or segmenting fruits and vegetables are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,569,280 of D'Ambro et al and 4,095,518 of Jones. and in German patent 817351 and Swiss patent 379705.
In none of the foregoing arrangements is the problem addressed of cutting a layered work piece, such as an onion, to form a decorative as well as useful finished product. Such a layered device, which must remain intact for decorative purposes, when cut by cutters that cut from the center axis of the work piece outward, such as in the Hampel, Leavens, Acree and Torres arrangements, is cut more deeply in the center than at the outer periphery of the work piece, which severely limits the extent to which the outer portion of the work piece can be cut without severing the central portion from the outer portion. In the Torres patent, the cutter does not pass completely through the work piece, and the end result is a flower like appearance, but with the radial spread thereof limited because of the failure of the apparatus to cut the outer periphery deeply enough inasmuch as cutting is from the inside out. In the D'Ambro et al. Jones, and Swiss patent, the initial cut is made on the outside of the work piece and cutting is from the outside of the work piece in toward the center, but the blades cut completely through the work piece. If these structures were to be used to cut an onion only partially, i.e., without cutting completely through the onion so that a decorative appearance may be achieved, the depth of cut would have to be arbitrarily determined by the operator. In addition, upon withdrawal of the cutter, the onion would tend to cling to the cutter and would have to be removed by hand. Heretofore, hand cutting of the onion has been relied upon, but such a method is labor intensive and not cost effective, as well as being difficult to accomplish properly, and often results in wastage because of a too deep cut which severs at least portions of the onion.